A Midsummer Night's Dream

Inciting Incident

The inciting incident is the event that introduces the central conflict, or primary struggle in the plot.

What event or action in Act I is the inciting incident? What quote shows the event or action in Act I that is the inciting incident?

A

“Be it so she; will not here before your grace / Consent to marry with Demetrius, / I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, / As she is mine, I may dispose of her: / Which shall be either to this gentleman / Or to her death, according to our law / Immediately provided in that case.”

B

“Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword, / And won thy love, doing thee injuries; / But I will wed thee in another key, / With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.”

C

“You have her father's love, Demetrius; / Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.”

D

“I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight: / Then to the wood will he to-morrow night / Pursue her; and for this intelligence / If I have thanks, it is a dear expense: / But herein mean I to enrich my pain, / To have his sight thither and back again.”